This series will explore the ins and outs to the grammar I’ve created for Laénara, the dominant language in the world of Alcrést. This article focuses on the wa particle, an important part of creating complex sentences. This particle in particular is probably one of the most difficult to understand, so I thought this would be a good place to start. Be sure to read the full grammar reference.

Background

Particles in Laénara are little words that link nouns or clauses (parts of sentences) to each other. They act as glue: they show the relationship between the word and the rest of the sentence.

“John ka maírí dani léíré.”

John walks through the forest.” The particles here are ka and dani. Ka is attached to John and shows John’s role to the rest of the sentence. He is the subject of the verb, the one doing “the thing”. In English the subject of the verb is determined by word order. Not so in Laénara.

Dani is another particle that is attached to maírí, or forest. It says that the topic or subject of the sentence is doing the verb “through” or “by way of” the preceding noun, forest. In this case, it simply means “through the forest”.

It’s important to recognize that some particles are functional words and do not have a translation equivalent. The particles té, yo, and dé for example do not have English equivalents. Yo goes at the end of sentences and marks the whole thing as a yes or no question : “John ka maírí dani léíré, yo?” “[Did] John walk through the forest?” The word “did” is not there, but it is implied by the yo particle, and the form of the verb. For fun, if we change the verb léíré (walks) to léíréru (can walk), we end up with: “John ka maírí dani léíréru, yo?” meaning “Can John walk through the forest?”. Without the yo particle, it instead becomes “John can walk through the forest.”

That is the power of particles. And the wa particle is much more powerful.

The Relativizer ‘Wa’

The wa particle serves two functions in Laénara, and the first of which is a relativizer. That is, it makes relative clauses. What is a relative clause?

A relative clause is a clause that relates to a nominal clause, or a noun. Relative clauses always function as adjectives.

English uses a few words to make relative clauses: that, whose, who, when, why, where. Let’s see some of these in action:

“The person who wrote the book.”

In this sentence, “who wrote the book” is a relative clause as it is describing (like an adjective) what “The person” did. That is to say, it is modifying the preceding clause. The word who has split the sentence in two, relating the relative clause to the nominal one. Let’s look at another.

“This is the place where we first met.”

In this sentence “where we first met” is a relative clause as it is describing “the place”.

Wa functions much the same. However, because Laénara is head final, sentences are organized in the opposite direction to English.

English: [noun] [relativizer] [descriptive sentence]
Laénara: [descriptive sentence] wa [noun]

We can see this head-finality in action with the same sentence as earlier: “The person who wrote the book.” In Laénara this is: “Ílíré la garíruna wa réko.” Or, “Book wrote who person.”

The Nominalizer ‘Wa’

The wa particle also serves as a nominalizer. That is, it makes nominal clauses. Let’s look at what a nominal clause is in English.

Simply put, a nominal clause is a clause that behaves like a noun. Why is this necessary? It allows an entire clause to be the subject or object of a verb, allowing you to create complex sentences.

Some words that English uses to create nominal clauses are: what, who, which, where, why, how, whether, whoever, when. Let’s look at some english examples.

“I know when the train will arrive.“

Let’s take a look at this sentence. There are clearly two clauses “I know” and “when the train will arrive”. “When” is the word that splits the sentence. There are two verbs in this sentence, “know” and “arrive”. The verb “know” is transitive in this sentence. That means it’s taking a direct object: “I know-what?”

Look at what the word “when” has done to the secondary clause. It has made the clause “the train will arrive” into the direct object of the verb “know”. It is a nominal clause, functioning in this sentence like a noun.

Wa functions similarly, but because it is a particle, it attaches to the ends of clauses, making the preceding verb or clause nominal, allowing other particles that normally attach to nouns, attach to the nominal phrase.

Note on the present participle: English has a present participle, words ending in ‘-ing’. English also has a progressive continuous tense that also uses the present participle in combination with “am, is, are”. Think about the word swimming. If you say “I am swimming” then you are doing the action of swimming presently and continuously. In Laénara this is the verb tattéríkéaíré.

If you say “I like swimming” this is the present participle, and you are talking about the act of swimming, and not an action that has occurred or is occurring or will occur in the future. In this case, swimming acts as a noun. There is no direct translation for this into Laénara. The wa particle is used instead: tattéríké wa.

To reiterate, Laénara lacks a present participle, but does have a present continuous tense. It relies on the wa particle to describe the act of a verb to replace this participle.

“I like swimming.”

Let’s start here with this one. This sentence is actually quite complex in Laénara. First, some background on the culture of Laénara speakers. If the speaker and listener both are aware of the subject of a conversation, pronouns are dropped. This is called a pro-drop language, and is quite common in the world. For this example we will drop the pronoun “I” from the translation.

Secondly, internal conditions are not expressed as something that is done, but rather as a state that is. You don’t “like” something, but you say that “a state of liking is”. Let’s get into the translation.

“Tattéríké wa la íokí tané.”

Again, tattéríké is the Laénaran verb, “swim”. The particle wa next to it modifies this verb, and makes it nominal. It becomes “the act of swimming” and not swimming itself as an action. Once nominalized, other particles can attach to the clause as if it was a noun and so the la particle is there, marking the clause before it as the direct object of the verb.

Next is the word íokí, which means “like, adore”. In this sentence it doesn’t need any particles. Finally is the copula/verb tané, which is an irregular verb that means “is, am, are”. Tané is used for “This = That”.

Fun fact about tané, in the English sentence “Where is it?”, when translating, tané would not be used. Instead, the other irregular verb aíré is used, which denotes existence. Aíré is also used to show progressive and continuous action in verbs: Érí aíré? (Where is [it]? Literal: Where exists?)

Tattéríké wa la: The act of swimming (direct object of the verb)
íokí: like/adore
tané.: is

---

Finally, let’s take a look at a stanza from a fragment of an in-world epic, called The Four Cardinal Kings.

“For the Goddess of Fortune awaits the western wind, blessing all who seek to return home.“

If you’ve been paying attention, you can already see the word “who” in the second clause, marking “who seek to return home” as a relative clause in English. It is modifying “all“, describing what they are doing.

Contained within that clause is “seek to return home“, where “return home” is acting like the direct object of the verb “seek” (What are we seeking?). The word “to” is making “to return home” act as a nominal phrase, though in English, this is actually something else called an infinitive phrase. Laénara lacks infinitive phrasing and instead relies on nominal ones.

Finally, take a look at the word blessing in the sentence. This usage refers to the act of blessing and not the action of blessing happening right now. This is using the English present participle. Recall that Laénara does not have a present participle.

“Éléuwa sa Amíshía ka noréaré wa la motaré wa sa nodotté la méríaré wa kí hoshínaé dakí la maíté.“

Here’s the translation, so let’s break the sentence down into smaller bits. There’s a lot of wa particles changing phrases and acting as either a nominalizer or relativizer depending on context. Additionally there’s a sa particle complicating things.

“Éléuwa sa Amíshía ka…”

Translated, this means “The Goddess of Fortune”, and the particle ka marks it as the subject of the verb. Essentially, the one who is doing the verb, the actor.

“…noréaré wa la…”

The first wa particle is here. It is connected to this verb “noréaré” which means “to return home”. The wa particle here is acting as a nominalizer, making the verb act as a noun, meaning essentially “the act of returning home”. The la particle marks this nominal phrase as the direct object of the verb, the thing verb is acting on.

“…motaré wa sa nodotté la…”

Another wa particle. It is connected to the verb “motaré” which means “to seek”. What is being sought is whatever the la particle was connected to, and that was the previous clause “the act of returning home”. The wa particle here is acting as a relativizer, essentially turning the entire previous clause into a relative one, acting as the English “who, those”. “noréaré wa la motaré wa” meaning “who seek the act of returning home”.

The sa particle is next, which is the possessive particle. It works like this: [Owner] sa [Possession] or [Nature/Category/Origin] sa [Noun]. The word “nodotté” means “all”. So this particle is saying that the nature of “all” in this sentence is the relative clause “who seek the act of returning home”. And that makes sense for the translation. The final la makes the entire thing the direct object of the next verb: “…noréaré wa la motaré wa sa nodotté la…”.

“…méríaré wa kí…”

The word “méría” is a noun that means “a blessing”, and it was given the inchoactive suffix “-ré”, turning it into a verb. The suffix means “to make x”, which makes “méríaré” mean “to make blessed”. It has been nominalized by wa which transforms it into a nominal: “the act of blessing”. It’s followed by ki, the temporal particle, which relates to time. It means “when/while”.

“…hoshínaé dakí la maíté.”

The word “hoshí” means “west” and the suffix “-naé” turns nouns into adjectives. So, “hoshínaé” means “western”. The word “dakí” means “wind”, and the la particle marks the phrase as the direct object of the following verb. “maíté” is a verb meaning “awaits”.

Way back at the beginning, we established that the “Goddess of Fortune” was the subject, but there was no direct object marked with la that followed it. Well, there it is at the end.

“Éléuwa sa Amíshía ka…”: [The] Goddess of Fortune
“…noréaré wa la…”: The act of returning home
“…motaré wa sa nodotté la…“: of all who seek
“…méríaré wa kí…”: [she] Blesses while
“…hoshínaé dakí la maíté.”: [she] awaits the western wind.